My Right Word: car stoning

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Blocks and Stones and Rocks

If you read this story from yesterday, about a stoning incident, here's the full first-person testimony:-

What Happened to Me on Tuesday Last

This past Tuesday, 28 Shvat - February 21, I was returning home to Karmei Tzur from Efrat where I work.

At the Gush Etzion Junction I collected a female hitchhiker who got into a back seat since the front passenger seat was where our infant seat was affixed. What luck. While traveling between El-Aroub and Bet-Omar on the ascent I noticed a car approaching from the opposite direction with a damaged front window from a rock that must have previously landed. I naively presumed that that was the result of an old incident that hadn't yet been fixed.

When I came close to the gas station at Bet-Omar (a location that usually requires a driver's attention due to wrongly parked taxis, bypassing and pulling out into the highway in a careless manner), I observed a man running across the road from right to left. I first thought that this was a soldier with a rifle and I slowed down to grasp what was happening. I then noticed dozens of people, old, young and teenagers, congregating on my right. It then became apparent that the "soldier with a rifle" was actually a photographer with a camera. He was seeking a better picture angle to snap away at what was about to happen. On my left were at least two other photographers, waiting for the action. I should emphasize that I was not the first victim and other cars had already been stoned and so these press photographers were well aware what was happening and was about to happen to me. None of them, it seems, thought to call for assistance from the police or IDF none of whom were present.

Knowing I had no choice but to continue and surely not stop for otherwise, if I had slowed down, I would have been trapped and blocked off, the only thing in my mind was to proceed home and not get caught at that crossing. It was difficult to pass through as the rocks came from a distance of just a few feet from the car, 'zero-range' as we say. The rioters clearly could see that the car contained two young females, defenceless. We were struck by many rocks, my view was blocked by the cracked glass and I simply concentrated on getting out of there as quickly as I could. At the time, as well as at this moment of writing, I did not fully grasp the danger of our situation.

It was only when I arrived home that I realized the entire front of the car was covered with shattered glass particles including me, the infant seat, the back seat, everything. There was also damage caused to the sides of the car. At least eight large rocks and blocks had hit my car. I learned the rock-throwing continued for a good few minutes afterwards with the resulting damage to other vehicles as well as psychological damage to the drivers and passengers.

Then I had to tell my children what happened in a normal, non-hysterical fashion so as to prepare them for further conversations that they would hear from grownups talking about the incident.

This is the first time I experienced such a serious and difficult incident as this and pray it is the last. And we have been living in Karmei Tzur for the past eight years. But now I know from first-hand experience with surety that rockthrowings occur all the time, especially on Highway 60 between the Gush Etzion junction and Halhoul. My first-grade son's transportation has also been stoned.

Another point: these terrorists had no qualms about not covering their faces during their attempt at murder.

We try to overcome the fear and to live our everyday life. We are believing people, with faith. After an incident like this we will pronounce the benediction "Blessed is He who Who bestows good things on those unworthy, and has bestowed on me every goodness". We believe in goodness, and that it will overcome evil. We only pray and hope that people in Israel and around the world will finally recognize the truth, that our enemies, the Arabs who fight us wish for evil, they want destruction, while we wish for good and want peace, even with our neighbors. We wish for life.

Zehava Weiss, Karmei Tzur

Posted at JewishPress, ,too.

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Monday, December 05, 2011

Stonethrowing: Attempted Murder

From Arnold Roth's blog:

From the British Sky News this afternoon:

Motorist's Terror As Rock Smashes Into Car

A motorist has told of her lucky escape after a large rock was thrown from a bridge, shattering her car windscreen. Lisa Horne, 26, said she was left "very shaken" and "scared to drive" following the incident last Thursday evening on the A12 in Essex. She and her 48-year-old mother escaped unharmed when their Vauxhall Astra was targeted as they travelled under the Fryerning Lane Bridge near Ingatestone. Around 40 minutes later, a 57-year-old woman and her husband were injured after a "bucket-sized" piece of concrete was dropped on to her car from a different bridge on the same stretch of road between Chelmsford and London. Police are treating both incidents as attempted murder.

And so they should.

People who hurl rocks at moving vehicles and at the people inside them either want to kill those people or are absolutely indifferent as to whether or not that is the result. Either way, it's murder or attempted murder. The deaths on an Israeli road two months ago of Asher Palmer and his baby son Yonatan ("25-Sep-11: "Only" rock throwers - but now a father and his infant son are dead") are proof enough. Palestinian Arab youths and men routinely engage in rock-throwing attacks on Israelis in their cars. We understand what their goals are. Some Brits might now, too.